Polly

Polly is the trading name, since March 2022, of the company that car dealers knew as DealerPolicy. It was founded in 2015 in Williston, Vermont by Travis Fitzgerald and Jeff Mongeon. Fitzgerald was running Marty's Auto, a Vermont dealership founded in 1982. Mongeon was VP of Winooski Insurance. They built DealerPolicy around a simple observation: a customer buying a car almost certainly also needs to buy or renew insurance, yet the two transactions happened in separate places days apart.

What it does. Polly is an embedded insurance marketplace that sits inside the finance-and-insurance desk at a car dealership — the F&I desk is where a buyer finalises the loan, warranty, and protection products before taking the keys. At that moment, a Polly-equipped F&I manager can pull quotes from 40+ carriers in seconds. The buyer sees live options from Progressive, Travelers, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, and the rest of the panel. They can click-to-buy and walk out with a binder and ID card. The 2025 platform, launched at the NADA Show, added a direct Progressive product alongside the Polly Agency panel and live agent support through a Quick Quote channel — reaching customers after hours and on Sundays when the dealership is closed.

Business case for dealers. Polly's pitch to dealers is financial. Its own quarterly reports show dealerships offering insurance quotes during the sale saw 20% higher F&I gross per vehicle — roughly $322 more per deal — and those where customers actually switched insurers saw 33% higher gross, or about $541 extra. The platform integrates with Tekion, CarNow, Darwin, and eLead, the management systems already running the F&I desk, so adoption does not require replacing infrastructure.

Funding history. DealerPolicy introduced its platform in 2016. It raised a Series B of $30 million in February 2021, led by 3L Capital and Hudson Structured Capital Management. Six months later, in August 2021, it closed a $110 million Series C led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, with 3L Capital and HSCM Bermuda participating again. Goldman Sachs's Paul Pate joined the board. Total disclosed funding stands at approximately $140 million across Series A, B, and C rounds. No additional funding rounds have been publicly announced since.

Rebrand. The company rebranded as Polly on March 2, 2022, debuting the name at the NADA Show in Las Vegas. The stated reason was to create a more consumer-facing identity — DealerPolicy had been a B2B brand invisible to car buyers. Co-founder Travis Fitzgerald described Polly as representing "the amazing coalition of support we've established."

Leadership shift. In August 2023, board member Rick Gibbs was appointed CEO. Gibbs co-founded Dealer.com (sold to Dealertrack in 2014 for nearly $1 billion, then to Cox Automotive for $4 billion), and later served as Chief Product Officer at Cox Automotive. Fitzgerald moved to Chief Strategy Officer. Jeff Mongeon became Chief Revenue Officer.

Scale and partnerships. By the time of the rebrand, Polly served over 1,200 dealers and had placed over $200 million in total premiums since launch. By the 2025 NADA Show, coverage placed had crossed $11 billion, and the platform had generated over 5 million quotes. The company is the largest embedded auto insurance network in automotive retail by its own description. In 2021, while still DealerPolicy, it partnered with JM&A Group — one of the largest independent F&I product providers, with access to 3,800 dealers — and with Darwin Automotive, a J.D. Power subsidiary, to integrate its FastPass insurance tool into Darwin's dealer menu software.

Difficult stretch. The 2022 rate environment hit the company hard. Rising interest rates made car buying more expensive, dealership traffic fell, and Polly's commission-based revenue fell with it. In December 2022 the company reduced its headcount by about 15%, cutting 47 roles. Seventeen of those were Vermont-based. Management described the action as a move toward capital efficiency after the growth ambitions following the 2021 Series C had outpaced actual market conditions.

What it does not do. Polly does not carry underwriting risk. It does not operate outside the United States. It does not serve verticals outside automotive retail. It is not a direct-to-consumer brand — consumers reach it through the dealer, not through polly.co. For a dealership that wants to add value at the F&I desk without building carrier relationships itself, it is the most established option in that niche. For a carrier looking for embedded distribution in travel, e-commerce, or international markets, Cover Genius and bolttech are the relevant comparators, not Polly.